Tight municipal budget for Swift Current requires 3.99 per cent property tax increase
A variety of inflationary and cost pressures will mean a tight rein on spending in the 2023 municipal budget for Swift Current, but a property tax increase of 3.99 per cent is still required to maintain service levels and take care of essential spending.
Council members approved the City’s 2023 municipal budget during a regular council meeting, March 20.
The introductory sentences of Mayor Al Bridal’s budget speech set a clear tone for the approach followed by council and administration. He noted that the financial climate has changed over the last few years and everyone is feeling the pinch of rising costs across every sector, from the gas pump to the grocery store.
“As a municipality looking ahead at the trajectory of inflationary pressures, we want to be good stewards for our community,” he said. “We want to be true to our values and our word that the City is indeed in good hands, just as we have pledged in our five-year strategic plan. To do that well, we have committed ourselves to a conservative mindset, preparing the 2023 budget with utmost care and attention, because our decisions impact your bottom line as well as our own.”
He added that this mindset will result in fewer construction projects during the year. Instead, the focus will be on maintaining municipal assets and making do for a little longer with ageing infrastructure.
The 2023 municipal budget of $81,563,153 includes $71,124,188 for operating and utility expenses and $10,438,965 for capital projects.
When compared with last year’s budget, the operating and utility expenses will be $4.8 million higher in the 2023 budget and capital expenses will be $6.5 million lower.
He noted that the 3.99 per cent tax increase will help the City to cover critical costs and continue to build for the future.
“None of this increase is coming from construction projects,” he said. “It is primarily in response to inflationary expenditures the City must incur to carry on business and maintain service levels. For example, you may not see as many large paving projects done this construction season as you have in past years, but you may notice us repair our infrastructure on a priority basis to ensure these assets are maintained well.”
The City was actually planning to have no additional debt in the 2023 budget, but a major water main break on 10th Avenue NE on the night before the budget announcement required a change of plan. As a result, the budget will include extra debt of about $1.3 million for this water main project upgrade, which was supposed to be deferred to next year until the pipe ruptured.
There was unanimous support around the council table for the budget and councillors expressed appreciation towards City administration for their work during the preparation of the budget.
“I know it wasn’t an easy task,” Councillor Leanne Tuntland-Wiebe said. “I noticed the binder was quite a bit smaller than it has been the last couple of years. So you really did listen. There’s no fluff in this budget. I appreciated the fact that what was asked for is what was necessary and yet we had to cut from that as well.”
Councillor Pat Friesen felt it was a tough budget that was developed through a team effort involving council and administration.
“There was a lot of things coming at us that we really have no control of and yet as a group I felt we worked very well together and came to a common understanding and came up with a budget that’s good,” she remarked. “I do want to point out that we are still able to have some development in the city and improving things for our citizens.”
Councillor John Wall felt it was important for the City to find efficiencies and he would therefore support the budget, even though he would have preferred no property tax increase.
Councillor Ryan Plewis said the conversations about the budget were very difficult, but the process was enjoyable due to the work done by City administration during the preparation of the budget.
Councillor Tom Christiansen noted that a much higher property tax increase of about 13 per cent would have been on the cards due to cost pressures and the original plans for what to include in the 2023 budget, but administration successfully trimmed it down. He therefore felt the 3.99 per cent tax increase compares well with the size of property tax increases in other municipalities around the province.
Councillor Ryan Switzer felt that “meat and potatoes” was an appropriate theme for the budget due to a focus on the basics.
“It’s healthy for the community, it’s going to get us through and there’s lots of necessary spending as well,” he said.
The budget still includes several major capital projects. The North Hill Reservoir pump station upgrade will continue this year at a cost of over $1.9 million to improve water pressure for the northeast and northwest areas of the city.
An amount of $550,000 is allocated to the Chinook Parkway expansion project, of which 60 per cent will be grant funding from the federal government. It will involve the construction of about one kilometre of pathway to connect the northeast neighbourhood with the rest of the community in a safe manner underneath the Trans-Canada Highway and Memorial Drive (Highway No. 4).
There will be another phase of construction at the Plewis Automotive Group Inclusive Park with a budgeted cost of $304,820. It includes federal and provincial grants as well as a one-time payment of $100,000 for naming rights from the Plewis Automotive Group.
There is a budget of just over $1.1 million for information technology projects and upgrades, of which the largest portion of $906,045 will be spend on upgrading financial and human resource management software. This has become necessary due to the age of the existing software, which is about 25 years old, and it will not be supported anymore after 2023.
Bridal said during a media interview after the council meeting that it was certainly difficult to come up with the 2023 budget due to the various cost pressures and most of the additional income from the 3.99 per cent property tax increase will go towards operational expenditure.
“I think everybody’s going to realize that there’s just nothing we can do about it,” he said about the tax increase. “We could have had a zero per cent tax increase, but if we did that, we would be taking from our capital reserve and then all we’re doing is stealing from ourselves, because these costs, like the extra carbon tax, the extra gasoline, natural gas costs, all the extra costs we’re paying, they’re still going to be there next year.”